Scott Walker administration must fix issues at WEDC

The hits just keep coming for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. This time, the punch in the face came from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, which reported last week that the agency repeatedly failed to follow basic standards in state law for ensuring the clear and proper use of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Why would that be so hard to do? Why wasn't Gov. Scott Walker's administration keeping a closer eye on what was going on? How can an administration so concerned with making sure budgets are balanced and taxpayer money is spent wisely allow an agency to make such serious mistakes?

It's not time yet to pull the plug on Walker's experiment of creating a quasi-public agency to replace the Department of Commerce - we think the idea remains solid - but the agency and the administration need to do a far better job of fiscal and public accountability. The agency cannot continue to operate this way. Simply following state law should be the most basic of tasks.

Journal Sentinel reporters Patrick Marley and Jason Stein wrote that the bureau report "found that WEDC didn't require financial statements from companies receiving incentives; gave awards to ineligible businesses and ineligible projects; and awarded nearly $1 million in tax credits to companies for actions taken before they had signed their contracts with the state. The agency didn't adequately follow up to see if jobs were being created and didn't clearly report the jobs numbers that it did have, the audit found."

That's a pretty sad record, and Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) and Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Allouez), co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Audit Committee, were right to be angered by it. Cowles told Marley and Stein that there was no excuse for not following state laws or being accountable to taxpayers.

"I hope they can get their act together, but this is pretty darn bad," Cowles said. "I'd say the jury is out whether this was a good idea to create this whole entity . . . I don't think there can be any more excuses. They've got to fix this thing."

Barca, who sits on the WEDC board, said another audit should be conducted in a year to determine whether the agency has improved. If not, WEDC should be scrapped in favor of the old Department of Commerce model, he said. That's an idea worth considering.

Agency officials blame its failures on what have become the usual suspects: Starting up a new agency is tough; accounting and computer systems need to be fixed; the Department of Commerce didn't have all the needed policies in place at the start; WEDC lost much of the institutional memory that also helped guide the state's jobs programs during the transition, when many of the old department's workers retired or left to take other jobs.

Yes, starting a new agency is tough, losing employees is tough, computer problems are tough. But those are solid excuses for not meeting goals or not getting up and running quickly. They are not adequate excuses for failing to follow state law.

We, too, hope the agency can get its act together. And its leaders can start by reading up on state law.

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Wisconsin continues to chip at the edges of overdrinking in the state without managing to get at the heart of the matter. As the Journal Sentinel's Karen Herzog reported last week, a state bill would give tavern and liquor store owners the ability to sue underage drinkers for $1,000 in small claims court if the person tries to trick them into selling alcohol or allowing them into a bar illegally.

The bill, patterned after Alaska's so-called Brown Jug Law, was approved unanimously by a state Assembly committee on Tuesday.

That's all well and good - and it will be interesting to see what happens to the market in fake IDs once the bill is passed - but is this really the state's biggest drinking problem? Yes, the bill makes sense, but what about putting real teeth into the state's drunken driving laws, creating more programs and courts specifically designed to handle those with drinking problems, checkpoints and raising the tax on beer and alcohol?

By all means, pass the bill, but shouldn't Wisconsin be taking bigger steps than this?

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We agree with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett: It's time for Palermo Villa Inc. and its workers to move on from their labor dispute and hold an organizing vote. He's right: Let the workers decide in a fair election whether to organize and which union should represent them.

Barrett's comment came in the wake of last week's decision by the Washington office of the National Labor Relations Board to upheld a regional decision that Palermo Villa Inc. did not violate labor relations laws when it fired 75 workers last year as part of an immigration audit and did not use the audit as retaliation for efforts to unionize the plant.

The decision by the NLRB's Office of the General Counsel in Washington, D.C., denies an appeal filed by the Palermo Workers Union, working with Voces de la Frontera, alleging unfair labor practices by Palermo's, the Journal Sentinel reported Monday. The organizations claimed the company fired workers in retaliation for union-organizing efforts.

In addition to the Palermo Workers Union, another union is also seeking to represent the workers.

The NLRB's decision clears the way for those workers to make their choice, a choice that Palermo Villa management has said it will support. Good for the company; good for the workers. Let's move on.